Funerary Figure of Akhenaten

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Shabtis are small funerary figures intended to perform work that the deceased was called upon to do in the afterlife. To serve this purpose, the figures were inscribed with the shabti spell, chapter six of the Book of the Dead. More than two hundred fragmentary funerary figures inscribed for Akhenaten are known, and their existence suggests that belief in the afterlife and certain aspects of traditional funerary practices survived during the Amarna period. However, Akhenaten's figures are inscribed only with the king's names and titles (see also 66.99.106), not with the standard shabti spell (as seen on 30.8.57). This figure shows Akhenaten clutching two ankh hieroglyphs rather than the hoe and pick that are more traditional attributes of shabtis (see 26.7.919). He also wears a tripartite wig rather than the nemes headcloth that is more common for royal shabtis (as on 66.99.35 and 66.99.36). The "sfumato" eyes, in which only a minimum of detail is indicated, are a frequent feature of Amarna funerary art (see 66.99.38).

Egyptian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Met collection of ancient Egyptian art consists of approximately 30,000 objects of artistic, historical, and cultural importance, dating from about 300,000 BCE to the 4th century CE. A signifcant percentage of the collection is derived from the Museum's three decades of archaeological work in Egypt, initiated in 1906 in response to increasing interest in the culture of ancient Egypt.

Metropolitan Museum of Art